TriadCity Message of the Day
2001-07-05

Several enhancements to the automated real-time auction system have been implemented. These are intended to help players recover from network glitches which happen to them while they're participating in an auction.

Essentially, items sold on auction, and the fees collected, are now stashed in "escrow" pending delivery to the proper player. If they can't be delivered at the moment the auction ends, they'll be delivered instead when the player next logs in.

Here's a scenario to help make this clear. You place a bid on an item. Your ISP dumps your dial-in connection. Meanwhile, your bid is the high bid: you win the item. When you next re-connect, the item will be transferred to you properly.

You should note that TC's auction system disallows a particular form of cheating which can be accomplished on some earlier MUDs: deliberately disconnecting to get out of one's commitment to sn auction. E.g., if you don't like the highest bid on the item you auctioned, logout before the auction concludes. That changes nothing in TC: the item was placed in "escrow" the moment it was accepted by the auctioneer.

Note lastly that the escrow cache does not survive server reboots. So if you get bounced during an auction you're participating in, you should come back asap.

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